Inspiring Quotes by Carl Jung
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In some way or other we are part of a single, all-embracing psyche, a single 'greatest man...'

Life calls us forth to independence, and anyone who does not heed this call because of childish laziness or timidity is threatened with neurosis. And once this has broken out, it becomes an increasingly valid reason for running away from life.

Complexes are psychic contents which are outside the control of the conscious mind. They have been split off from consciousness and lead a separate existence in the unconscious, being at all times ready to hinder or to reinforce the conscious intentions.

Not nature, but the genius of mankind, has knotted the hangman's noose with which it can execute itself at any moment.

Far from being a material world, this is a psychic world, which allows us to make only indirect and hypothetical inferences about the real nature of matter. The psychic, alone has immediate reality, and this includes all forms of the psychic, even.

Enlightenment consists not merely in the seeing of luminous shapes and visions, but in making the darkness visible. The latter procedure is more difficult and therefore, unpopular.

The soul does not require the organs of sense in order to see, hear, smell, taste and feel, in a much more perfect state; but with this great difference, that in such a state, it stands in much nearer connection with the spirtual than the material world.

I readily admit that I have such a great respect for what happens in the human soul that I would be afraid of disturbing and distorting the silent operation of nature by clumsy interference.

Learn your techniques well and be prepared to let them go when you touch the human soul.

So often among so-called primitives one comes across spiritual personalities who immediately inspire respect, as though they were the fully matured products of an undisturbed fate.

The reason for such an unreasonable attitude with me is that I am not at all sure what will happen to me after death. I have good reasons to assume that things are not finished with death. Life seems to be an interlude in a long story.

Science is not ... a perfect instrument, but it is a superb and invaluable tool that works harm only when taken as an end in itself.

Somewhere, right at the bottom of one's own being, one generally does know where one should go and what one should do. But there are times when the clown we call I behaves in such a distracting fashion that the inner voice cannot make its presence felt.

How difficult it is to reach anything approaching a moderate and relatively calm point of view in the midst of one's emotions.

We know that the wildest and most moving dramas are played not in the theatre but in the hearts of ordinary men and women.

Modern man is sick because he is not whole.

Paul hardly ever allows the real Jesus of Nazareth to get a word in.

Creativity is the art that can give rise to visionary metaphorical relationships, as opposed to purely psy-chological ones.

I am the triple owner of the world, the finest Turkey, the Lorelei, Germania and Helvetia of exclusively sweet butter and Naples, and I must supply the whole world with macaroni.

The dream is a series of images, which are apparently contradictory and nonsensical, but arise in reality from psychologic material which yields a clear meaning.

One could say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is.

At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the plashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that come and go, in the procession of the seasons.

Active imagination requires a state of reverie, half-way between sleep and waking.

The seat of faith, however, is not consciousness but spontaneous religious experience, which brings the individual's faith into immediate relation with God.

The general function of dreams is to try to restore our psychological balance by producing dream material that re-establishes, in a subtle way, the total psychic equilibrium.

We meet ourselves time and again in a thousand disguises on the path of life.

If we feel our way into the human secrets of the sick person, the madness also reveals its system, and we recognize in the mental illness merely an exceptional reaction to emotional problems which are not strange to us. -- The Content of the Psychoses.

A book of mine is always a matter of fate. There is something unpredictable about the process of writing, and I cannot prescribe for myself any predetermined course.

Projection of our own shadow makes the whole world a replica of our own unknown face.

The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others.

A residual sea of symbols which is shared by all mankind, usually accessed through dreams or altered states, and from which cultures draw images on which to found their religions.

The psyche is a natural phenomenon. All aspects of the psyche, even those which seem pathological or destructive, actually serve the function of furthering our psychological development.

It is astounding that man, the instigator, inventor and vehicle of all these developments, the originator of all judgements and decisions and the planner of the future, must make himself such a quantité negligeable.

I think that one should view with philosophic admiration the strange paths of the libido and should investigate the purposes of its circuitous ways.

To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real.

To ask the right question is already half the solution of a problem.

A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life's morning.

The principle aim of psychotherapy is not to transport one to an impossible state of happiness, but to help (the client) acquire steadfastness and patience in the face of suffering.

I know only that I was born and exist, and it seems to me that I have been carried along. I exist on the foundation of something I do not know. In spite of all uncertainties, I feel a solidity underlying all existence and a continuity in my mode of being.

For a woman, the typical danger emanating from the unconscious comes from above, from the spiritual sphere personified by the animus, whereas for a man it comes from the chthonic realm of the world and woman, i.e., the anima projected on to the world.

We can hardly escape the feeling that the unconscious process moves spiral-wise round a centre, gradually getting closer, while the characteristics of the centre grow more and more distinct.

Man and woman become a devil to each other when they do not separate their spiritual paths, for the nature of created beings is always the nature of differentiation.

No matter what the world thinks about religious experience, the one who has it possesses a great treasure, a thing that has become for him a source of life, meaning, and beauty, and that has given a new splendor to the world and to mankind.

Only a few individuals succeed in throwing off mythology in a time of a certain intellectual supremacy -- the mass never frees itself.

You can exert no influence if you are not susceptible to influence.

The divine process of change manifests itself to our human understanding ... as punishment, torment, death, and transfiguration.

The totality of the psyche can never be grasped by the intellect alone.

No language exists that cannot be misused... Every Interpretation is hypothetical, for it is a mere attempt to read an unfamiliar text.

All true things must change and only that which changes remains true.

The unconscious mind of man sees correctly even when conscious reason is blind and impotent.

In the products of the unconscious we discover mandala symbols, that is, circular and quaternity figures which express wholeness, and whenever we wish to express wholeness, we employ just such figures.

The right way to wholeness is made up of fateful detours and wrong turnings.

The attainment of wholeness requires one to stake one's whole being. Nothing less will do; there can be no easier conditions, no substitutes, no compromises.

The mandala is an archetypal image whose occurrence is attested throughout the ages. It signifies the wholeness of the self. This circular image represents the wholeness of the psychic ground or, to put it in mythic terms, the divinity incarnate in man.

Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one's being, but by integration of the contraries.

An old alchemist gave the following consolation to one of his disciples: No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown friends will come and seek you.

Individuation is to divest the self of false wrappings.